PHILADELPHIA - Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that a Philadelphia woman targeted mentally disabled adults and confined them like "zoo animals," forcing some into prostitution and causing the deaths of two victims, in a scheme to steal their Social Security benefits.

Linda Ann Weston, 52, was indicted on charges including hate crimes, kidnapping, murder in aid of racketeering, and forced human labor. Authorities said this is the first time the federal hate crimes statute has been used to protect the disabled.

"Shocking does not begin to describe the criminal allegations in this case, where victims were tied up and confined like zoo animals and treated like property akin to slaves," U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger said.

The investigation began in October 2011 after a landlord discovered four malnourished victims locked in the basement of a Philadelphia apartment building, including one who was chained to a boiler. Authorities soon began untangling a complicated web of relationships among victims and their alleged captors in an investigation that spanned several states.

Weston has been jailed since then and pleaded not guilty to related state charges. Her lawyer, George Yacoubian, said Wednesday that federal prosecutors had "over-reached for effect" with the new charges and that Weston maintains her innocence.

The 150-page grand jury indictment describes Weston as the ringleader of a "family" that included her daughter and three men who prosecutors say helped control and subjugate the victims.

Weston used "cunning, trickery, force and coercion" to get mentally disabled people to designate her as their caretaker, allowing her to illegally collect about $212,000 in Social Security payments over 10 years, Memeger said.

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With the purpose of writing about true crime in an authoritative, fact-based manner, veteran journalists J. J. Maloney and J. Patrick O’Connor launched Crime Magazine in November of 1998. Their goal was to cover all aspects of true crime: Read More